Op-Ed: Delegate Dither-athon- Where’s the democracy?

So the inability to come up with single rule, and the ability to polarize any situation have wound up with yet another set of ideas to deal with the Democrats’ self-inflicted problem. If you were looking for an unnecessary mess, this would be it.

The current set of ideas from the weather clock which the Democrat convention is rapidly becoming include new votes in Michigan and Florida.

“One alternative mentioned now by the Florida Democratic Party is a vote-by-mail election. Under this scenario, ballots would be mailed to all of Florida's approximately 4.7 million registered Democrats in May or June. The cost would be $4 million to $6 million, and the state party would want to be reimbursed, a party official said Thursday.

The Florida Democratic Party would be open to accepting a "soft money" contribution from, say, a wealthy Democratic donor, labor union or other source to underwrite the cost, the official said. Also, Florida Democrats would want commitments from the Obama and Clinton camps that the two candidates would campaign in the state. State Chairwoman Karen L. Thurman issued a statement saying that the Florida Democratic Party was hashing out possibilities with representatives of the Clinton and Obama campaigns as well as the Democratic National Committee.”

Another possibility might be hiring a container ship, and dumping money out at sea to needy fish.

Arguably better than nothing, but will it result in a decision? That's what's lacking, even conceptually, a result.

Having totally disrespected both states’ votes, their party members, and some of the more basic principles of democracy, another trudge around the maypole, at great expense.

That’s an idea?

There’s a lot of bridges around the world for sale. You could get a pretty good revenue base going by buying a few, and charging tolls.

At what level of insensitivity is this situation going to be resolved? There wouldn’t have been any delegate issue, or at least less of an issue, if those states had just been included from the start.

It would also have changed the "inertia" effect in media reporting.

Further into the mire, this:

“Each state has two options, Dean said: come back to the Democratic National Committee with a new delegate selection plan that complies with party rules, or appeal to a 186-member credentials committee at the August convention to allow the Michigan and Florida delegates' seating.

With no consensus in sight, some officials said it was time to convene a committee of party elders.”

Which translates as Square One, with a few added qualifiers which didn't seem to get a lot of attention previously.

It would seem that the step from electoral certainty to pure chaos isn’t quite as far as some people may have imagined.

Not quite the greatest projection of a political image in history, either.

One of the joys of being a liberal is that this sort of idiocy has so many ethical implications, ideological values… Honestly, I’ve got no more time for people who’ve spent their lives living in self righteous lattes than anyone else.

Is a bit of basic democracy out of the question? This is/was supposed to be election of a candidate by popular vote, remember?

If a deal has to be cut, is it a lot to ask that everybody finally play by the same rules, and that the voters get some respect?

Bluntly, who the hell are these party hacks to deny people their vote in the first place?

We liberals are supposed to be strong on principles, particularly democratic principles.